Alien 3 (1992) - Review

Director: David Fincher | Written by Walter Hill, David Giler, Larry Ferguson | 114m

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After escaping from the alien planet, the ship carrying Ellen Ripley crashes onto a remote and inhabited ore refinery. While living in the ore refinery until she is rescued by her employers, Ripley discovers the horrifying reason for her crash: An alien stowaway. As the alien matures and begins to kill off the inhabitants, Ripley is unaware that her true enemy is more than just the killer alien.

- 20th Century Studios -

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(MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD)

Poor Alien 3. Poor David Fincher. Shame on you, 20th Century Fox (as was). After the enormous success of Aliens, a sequel was always going to be on the cards. But what would it be; a close quarters horror-fest, a-la Alien, or would it try to duplicate the broad appeal of Aliens with nail-biting action?

We ended up with a film that tried to do both but succeeded at neither.

Picking up an unknown period of time after the end of Aliens, our survivors are in hyper-sleep aboard the Sulaco. Stasis is interrupted by a Facehugger, which inexplicably causes a fire, leading to an emergency ejection of Ripley, Hicks, Newt and what remained of Bishop. They crash land on Fury 161, a prison planet occupied by the scum of the Earth(?), who have since turned to religion. Ripley is the only survivor (more on this later) of the crash and she finds herself an unwelcome visitor in the all-male colony. Well, not the only unwelcome visitor.

Once again, Sigourney Weaver proves she's got some serious acting chops, ranging between subtle vengefulness and explosions of rage. Some of the more memorable characters (and unfortunately there's not all that many memorable ones) are Leonard Dillon (Charles S. Dutton), Jonathan Clemens (Charles Dance, in a movie that's way beneath him), Harold Andrews (Brian Glover) and Francis Aaron (Ralph Brown). The innumerable prisoners are played by Paul McGann, Danny Webb and Pete Postlethwaite amongst others. Once again, they're here mainly to be killed off by the alien once it does put in an appearance, but for the first time they feel disposable. The franchise has never strayed from the tried and true Ten Little Indians idea, but at least prior instalments made the characters either developed enough to make us care about them or at the very least likeable. Few of the characters here are and it marks the beginning of a downward spiral for the franchise.

It's difficult to sum up what exactly went wrong with Alien 3. Perhaps it's the nihilistic tone? The killing off of Hicks and Newt? The unlikeable characters? Putting a chestburster in Ripley and having her sacrifice herself? Taken in isolation, each of those would seem reason to dislike this movie. But take them altogether, and all of those elements work. The entire film is about loss, sacrifice, not getting the ending you want. Sure, killing Hicks and then giving Ripley an unconvincing love plot with Clemens seems a bit stupid; perhaps without the subplot, Hicks' death would be easier to digest. It gives Ripley moments of happiness that don't fit with the tone of the film. But Newt's death (and I'm getting ready for a stoning for this) had to happen. Quite aside from it being inappropriate to have a young girl running around a prison with child murderers, rapists and all around deeply unpleasant characters, nothing demonstrates Ripley's depression and hatred for the Xenomorph more than them taking away all that she holds dear. In Ripley's own words;

You've been in my life so long, I can't remember anything else.

Many will tell you it's wrong to kill Hicks and Newt. It was wrong to kill Ripley. The nihilistic tone was a bad idea. To those people, I ask; why? It's genius, brave and exactly the right response to the ending of Aliens. Sure, it's nice for people to get their happy ending, but it's not exactly realistic, is it?

Where Alien 3 does succeed is where it dares. It introduces an entirely new wrinkle into the Xenomorph lifecycle; here, the Xeno is born from a dog as opposed to a human, giving rise to a quadrupedal alien as opposed to a bipedal creature as born from humans. This Xeno is more animalistic, more feral and more voracious than the others;

This is thanks again to H.R. Giger, who once again returned to design the Xenomorph. Unfortunately, many of his designs were rejected, but the idea of a runner alien were retained. As you can see above, though, the execution leaves a lot to be desired; the film makes use of some revolutionary (for the time) techniques, such as computer-controlled camera moves, blue screen technology in conjunction with good-old puppetry and practical effects. Sadly, the digital effects don't hold up nowadays, and there's some seriously, almost laughably, bad implementations.

David Fincher got rather a bad rap for this film; there is nothing at all wrong with the direction of the film, which succeeds more as a horror film than it does an action one; it lacks the militant action of its predecessor, replaced here by the type of frenetic, empty thrills that plagued 90's action flicks, but manages to capture the sort of taught, tense feeling of encroaching terror that both Alien and Aliens managed so expertly. Fincher allows the tension to build up slowly, using the same technique as Ridley used expertly in Alien: slowly burn through and then a fast, frenetic spurt of violent action to punctuate attacks, be they alien or human in nature. The movie and Fincher were spoiled by studio interference, a script that was being written as the movie was being shot, clashes with executives, miserable winter conditions and a release date of 1992 looming that drove him off production during the edit process - the theatrical release was a mess; characters inexplicably vanish from the plot, an entire half hour middle act was cut, all at the behest of a studio who had already changed much of the film during production. In 2003, we got the Assembly Cut, which at just over three hours long is a much better film. It adds many of the scenes that were cut and more closely matches the original vision of Fincher (who refused to have anything to do with the film except than to give the Assembly Cut his blessing); Golic (Paul McGann), a character who had half of his scenes cut, leaving his fate unknown in the theatrical release, gets resolution (which is great, because he was one of the few developed prisoner characters), and we're treated to a much longer sequence of the characters' attempts to capture the Xenomorph and the aftermath. These things might not seem like much, but with other changes and additions, such as the Xenomorph being born from an ox as opposed to a dog, an extended autopsy of Newt (which you could argue is more gratuitous than anything else) and improved digital effects that make for a more rounded, coherent film. It's a vast improvement and far superior, so I'd recommend not even bothering with the theatrical cut (as would most fans...).

So, all in all, Alien 3 is something of a missed opportunity. It has some great ideas and is sincere in its execution, but the behind-the-scenes mistreatment of the cast and director leaves something of a bad taste. Alien 3 is typically known as the black sheep of the franchise, the lowest point, and with the theatrical cut, they're right. But the Assembly Cut goes a long way towards showing what we could have got; a coherent, well thought out adventure that's a decent horror film by a director just getting into his stride. I'd love to meet Fincher one day and thank him for creating one of the most daring, relatable, original and I would argue the last great entry into a series that's never quite managed to capture the thrills since. Sure, some of the characters leave a lot to be desired and the prison isn't the most inspiring of locations; but Alien 3 is dark, nihilistic, but by turns funny and adventurous that over time has come to be liked by fans with a sort of cult-following, and it's a fate it deserves; it's certainly not the best instalment, but Alien 3 is a worthy addition that feels like the last of the good ones.

Despite any criticism, I feel it's redeemed by including this absolute gem of a scene:

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Sam's Score: 6

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Alien 3 is available on home media and most video streaming services.